Grow Your Own Groceries by Marjory Wildcraft

Set on thirty acres of land in central Texas, this is not Old MacDonald’s farm and there are no oink oinks here or there. Summer can be very hot and rain very scarce. They do have winter when temperatures can get as cold as four degrees Fahrenheit. The soil is sand on top of red clay. In this climate you will need to make sure you have a reliable source of water, and Marjory goes into some detail about her approach. A well in that area is expensive (thirteen thousand dollars) and has to go almost five hundred feet deep. Even then, production is not always consistent so that is just one part of the plan. They also have a fairly large-scale rainwater collection system that can store thousands of gallons of water, and they have a pond. The pond varies widely in size depending on rainfall. She briefly mentions that catfish can be the easiest food source to raise if you have the room.

In that area it takes about twenty acres to support two Dexter cows, so that leaves ten acres for everything else. Bio-intensive gardening takes up part of the remaining acreage. According to the experts, four thousand square feet are needed for one vegetarian. Twelve-hundred square feet are for food and the rest is for things like compost material. Rabbits occupy a small amount of additional space and provide meat and fertilizer. The joke about how fast rabbits breed is no joke. Every step of the process is fast. A detailed demonstration is given for harvesting a rabbit for food. If you are squeamish, I don’t recommend you watch it.

This farm is on top of a hill so wind and sun can be rather fierce. Wind and sun management is done as much as possible with trees and bushes. Moringa and other drought-resistant, edible trees are useful here. Insects also need to be controlled. Most insects are beneficial for gardens, and those that aren’t are attracted to unhealthy plants. So don’t have those. There are also chickens, which like to eat all the bugs they can get. You can also eat many bugs yourself. The key word there is you can, not me.

In addition to chickens, there are some geese, which provide down and eggs. The chickens on this farm roost outside in the trees and dogs are required for security, which they do with no guns, X-ray machines or patrol cars. A rooster will also be very attentive in taking care of his harem as best he can, but we are warned that some of them will crow all night long. They have a name for roosters like that: dinner.

There is a lot of information packed into this 2-DVD set and it comes with an additional CD of source and reference material. I give it a thumbs UP.

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Winter 2014

About Tim Boyd

Tim Boyd was born and raised in Ohio, graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a degree in computer engineering, and worked in the defense industry in Northern Virginia for over 20 years. During that time, a slight case of arthritis led him to discover that nutrition makes a difference and nutrition became a serious hobby. After a pleasant and satisfying run in the electronics field, he decided he wanted to do something more important. He is now arthritis free and enjoying his dream job working for the Weston A. Price Foundation.